EvalKSA: Visual and Memorable Evaluation Reporting

Hello from chilly Wisconsin! My name is Brenda Krueger, and I’m a project manager at ARC Evaluation and an instructor for PSYC 726B: Reporting and Interpreting Evaluation Results within the Evaluation Studies program at UW-Stout.

PSYC-726B is a .3 credit online module focused on reporting and interpreting evaluation results. One of the learning objectives is to develop reports that are clear, accurate, and responsive to client needs.

This learning objective aligns with competency 2.14 of the Professional Practice domain: communicates evaluation findings/results, including strengths and limitations.

As evaluators, it is important to communicate the results, both strengths and limitations, in a way that is easy to understand and memorable for your stakeholder groups. This can be done through storytelling within the report, graphics that depict the main points in the report, or photographs that help the reader visualize the results. A single evaluation report may not meet the needs of all the different stakeholder groups. Knowing your audience will help deliver a report or reports that meets all stakeholder needs. Reports can be delivered in many different packages, such as: technical reports, infographics, or graphically designed, full-color, public-facing reports. When reporting, there is a balance between reporting strengths and limitations, but also making the report visually appealing and memorable.

How do you identify what type of report your stakeholders want or need? How do you make sure that your reports include all the necessary content (strengths and limitations), but also deliver a message that your stakeholders will remember? What KSA’s do you possess that help you develop reports that are clear, accurate, and responsive to client needs? We’re gathering data on EvalKSA’s, share your responses to these questions with us!

This blog post is part of a series that explores the relationship between the proposed American Evaluation Association competencies for evaluators and how they align with the KSA’s needed to use them in our work. We are doing this through the lens of the learning objectives within the Evaluation Studies Graduate certificate offered by the University of Wisconsin-Stout. The curriculum design was intended to align with the competencies first proposed by Stevahn, King, Ghere, & Minnema (2005).